April 2010 Archives

My friends at currency brokers World First have been in touch with me again, which suggests that either the deadline for submitting SPS applications is fast approaching or sterling is on the move in the foreign exchanges - or both

Farmers have less than three weeks to get their SP5 forms back to the Rural Payments Agency, with Monday 17 May being the final day before penalties kick in. So time is short.

On that form they have to declare whether they want to receive their 2010 SFP in pounds or in euros. And that decision has probably become more urgent than ever, as sterling starts to strengthen against the euro.

At the beginning of April, it was worth about 90p/euro - pretty similar to where it was for much of last year. But since then it has strengthened almost daily and currently stands at less than 87p/euro...

If someone had told me that Wales was the number one producer of free-range eggs in Europe, I would not have believed them.

Sheep? Maybe. Free-range hens? Well, show me the figures.

But, according to official statistics from the Welsh Assembly Government, there are now more than 300 registered free-range egg producers in Wales - a threefold increase in just three years. And the number keeps growing.

There are several reasons for this expansion - not least the processing and marketing grants available from the Welsh Assembly Government under rural development programmes. These are helping the Welsh egg sector prepare for the impending EU ban on conventional cages....

Monday 26 April: Retailer M&S has just announced a new milk pricing arrangement - its so-called "Milk Pledge Plus" contract.

Building on the Milk Pledge model, introduced in 2005 and offering M&S dairy farmers a fixed premium over their input costs, the new model now takes into account the retail price.

In addition, the retailer will reward its farmers with agreed bonus payments linked to specific animal health and welfare standards.

Look out for more on this story later on FWi.

(By deputy business editor Paul Spackman)

If I had a pound for every time I heard the word climate change in a conference, I probably wouldn't be sat here writing this blog post!

The latest incidence was this week's AHDB meat outlook conference, which was suitably titled "A Changing Climate" and spent much of the morning examining what climate change means for the livestock sector.

Aside from the recent "UEA-gate" scandal, (when controversial papers were leaked from the University of East Anglia), there's little doubt climate change is happening.

Governments are focussing more attention to it and supermarkets are also following suit - many are already stamping carbon footprints over their packaging.

What is interesting, according to new AHDB research, is that very few (one in eight) shoppers are willing to pay any extra for low carbon food, despite their apparent concern about the impact of climate change...

Everyone knows that farming has a bright future.

Well, those who have been to any recent farming conferences will have gleaned that, with world population expanding, diets changing and resources depleting, prospects for commodity markets over the next thirty years are positively glowing.

And it seems that the poultry sector is no exception. In fact, it probably has even more cause for celebration.

Addressing the International Egg Commission conference in Paris this week, French consultant Pierre le Roy explained that global poultry meat consumption has already doubled over the past 20 years, while egg consumption has gone up 37%.

And, with developing countries still only consuming half the amount of chicken per capita as developed countries, there is tremendous "upside"...

Eagle-eyed readers of this blog may have noticed a sudden increase in the number of poultry-related postings in recent weeks.

Well, there have been two - one relating to egg imports, the other to egg fraud - which compared with zero in the previous twelve months is quite an escalation.

This sudden interest in poultry-related matters is not entirely coincidental, because, as of last week, I have started a new job as editor of Poultry World.

Yes, sixteen years with Farmers Weekly have come to an end.

Sad, I know. But suffice it to say, I'm pretty excited about the new challenge. (Note my refusal to use the term "eggs-cited" - in my short time as Poultry World editor I think I have heard just about every poultry pun going and it's starting to wear a bit thin!)

So Gordon Brown has ended weeks of speculation and set the date for the next general election (6 May in case you missed it).

It is to be expected that the vast majority of farmers will vote Conservative, following their natural instinct that "the Tories are the party of the countryside".

This is in defiance of the other commonly-held belief that "farmers are always better off under a Labour government".

Both notions are questionable, as it is the exchange rate that has the greatest influence on farm profitability, not the political hue of DEFRA ministers.

But with the Tories ahead in the polls, the question on most farmers' lips will be "what difference will a change of government make to British agriculture?"

The short answer, to my mind, is "not a lot"...